Gender roles are associated with biological sex. Male and female help define masculine and feminine, but gender roles are ultimately constructs. They exist in our minds. You correlated gender with sex when that just isn't true. I can wear a dress. I can put on make-up. I can fuck myself with a dildo. Those are all "feminine" things that I, a man, can do. Mutsuki does not have the mind of someone who has a penis. He has the mind of someone who is "masculine". Thus why I brought up the mind thing (though I fucked it up) - females can have the mind of a masculine person despite having a vagina while masculinity is associated with having a penis.

But none of that is my point. There are a lot of people who are discriminated against to the point where they want to die (a recently, heartbreaking example of this is Leelah Alcorn). There are people who are killed because they do not conform to gender roles. Not using the correct pronouns is a relatively minor thing, but it contributes to the general oppression of trans* people - the kind that results in transwomen only having a lifespan of 30-32 years. I'm asking you to respect that someone wants to be called male -even if he's fictional- because there are people who experience trauma because they do not fit into the gender role that is associated with their sex.

Yeah, if someone wants to be called a blue whale because that's what makes them comfortable then sure, but your comparison is off because there is evidence that trans* people's brains are wired more like the sex they claim to be rather than their biological sex. What Mutsuki experience is an issue that a lot of people face, and calling him a woman reinforces the societal expectations that leads to trans* people dying at higher rates due to both murder and suicide.

The fact that so many books still name the Beatles as "the greatest or most significant or most influential" rock band ever only tells you how far rock music still is from becoming a serious art. Jazz critics have long recognized that the greatest jazz musicians of all times are Duke Ellington and John Coltrane, who were not the most famous or richest or best sellers of their times, let alone of all times. Classical critics rank the highly controversial Beethoven over classical musicians who were highly popular in courts around Europe. Rock critics are still blinded by commercial success. The Beatles sold more than anyone else (not true, by the way), therefore they must have been the greatest. Jazz critics grow up listening to a lot of jazz music of the past, classical critics grow up listening to a lot of classical music of the past. Rock critics are often totally ignorant of the rock music of the past, they barely know the best sellers. No wonder they will think that the Beatles did anything worthy of being saved.

In a sense, the Beatles are emblematic of the status of rock criticism as a whole: too much attention paid to commercial phenomena (be it grunge or U2) and too little to the merits of real musicians. If somebody composes the most divine music but no major label picks him up and sells him around the world, a lot of rock critics will ignore him. If a major label picks up a musician who is as stereotyped as can be but launches her or him worldwide, your average critic will waste rivers of ink on her or him. This is the sad status of rock criticism: rock critics are basically publicists working for major labels, distributors and record stores. They simply highlight what product the music business wants to make money from.

Hopefully, one not-too-distant day, there will be a clear demarcation between a great musician like Tim Buckley, who never sold much, and commercial products like the Beatles. At such a time, rock critics will study their rock history and understand which artists accomplished which musical feat, and which simply exploited it commercially.

Beatles' "Aryan" music removed any trace of black music from rock and roll. It replaced syncopated African rhythm with linear Western melody, and lusty negro attitudes with cute white-kid smiles.

Contemporary musicians never spoke highly of the Beatles, and for good reason. They could never figure out why the Beatles' songs should be regarded more highly than their own. They knew that the Beatles were simply lucky to become a folk phenomenon (thanks to "Beatlemania", which had nothing to do with their musical merits). That phenomenon kept alive interest in their (mediocre) musical endeavours to this day. Nothing else grants the Beatles more attention than, say, the Kinks or the Rolling Stones. There was nothing intrinsically better in the Beatles' music. Ray Davies of the Kinks was certainly a far better songwriter than Lennon & McCartney. The Stones were certainly much more skilled musicians than the 'Fab Four'. And Pete Townshend was a far more accomplished composer, capable of entire operas such as "Tommy" and "Quadrophenia"; not to mention the far greater British musicians who followed them in subsequent decades or the US musicians themselves who initially spearheaded what the Beatles merely later repackaged to the masses.

The Beatles sold a lot of records not because they were the greatest musicians but simply because their music was easy to sell to the masses: it had no difficult content, it had no technical innovations, it had no creative depth. They wrote a bunch of catchy 3-minute ditties and they were photogenic. If somebody had not invented "Beatlemania" in 1963, you would not have wasted five minutes of your time reading these pages about such a trivial band.

Uta knowing about the operation makes sense because Roma recognized Kaneki at the club. Roma reports to Uta that Haise/Kaneki is alive. When one of those ghouls is dropped into Uta's lap then realizing that an operation is occurring/going to occur is not a big surprise.

If anyone's interested, I managed to finish them all on time and get to class without falling into pieces, so today was a success. The professor even complimented my sources as he skimmed through the bibliography.

Although trying to make sometime feel guilty of the actions of their ancestors is a really horrible thing to do, that's not at all what white privilege is supposed to mean. Plenty of SJWs like to try and make it mean that, so by saying something like /u/DeathByRedditcide[2] did is only making matters worse.

There's no cabal of SJWs trying to make people feel bad for what their ancestors did. People feel guilty when we feel responsible. I feel no personal guilt for slavery. Both sides of my family came to America in the late 1800's, if not early 1900's. To my knowledge, none of my ancestors in Europe owned slaves (though I don't know much, so I could be wrong). But I'm still a beneficiary of past and ongoing systematic discrimination. If I were to feel guilt, it'd be because I have profited off of the suffering of others. I feel the same guilt over capitalism. I feel the same guilt over sexism. I suspect that many of these people do not like to talk about discrimination because they feel guilty because of their complicity. Challenging outlooks and belief systems is hard. Ironically, the "anti-SJWs" - or whatever you want to call them - are reinforcing the systems that make them feel guilty, so the horribly dumb cycle of "Wow, that's shitty, and I profit from it - wait I don't like that - fuck you for pointing out that I profit from said thing. It's not a problem! You're just lazy, stupid, etc." continues. People who complain about guilt yet don't do anything to try to make things better - even if it's an extremely minor thing like not telling racist jokes and recognizing subconscious discrimination on their part - frustrate me because they only make things worse. Very few people are trying to make others feel bad on purpose. The topic, the events, the history behind something might make someone feel ashamed, but (and this will probably seem ironic to someone who frequents /r/TumblrInAction) we cannot stop the fight against discrimination because a powerful group had its feelings hurt. The best way to deal with guilt is to fix the injustices which pervade our society because no more injustice means nothing to be angry about, nothing to feel guilty about. Whining about guilt does nothing.

Getting into the muck of American history has shown me the depravity of many American leaders. White supremacy only had its back broken 50 years ago, and the South* has a long tradition of restoring its beloved discrimination. Fighting racism is still necessary. I don't give a damn about overzealous "SJWs" because, even when they're frustratingly wrong, they're usually trying to do good. The anti-social justice crowd is attempting to preserve the discriminatory institutions which benefit privileged classes. We need to take racists seriously because people will justify their privileges easily. Because people do not like to feel guilty. Because discrimination benefits them. Because certain segments of society have convinced themselves that racism is dead. Ignoring racists and racism is the absolute worst thing we can do if we want to prevent racism.

*I mention the South because I am most familiar with Southern history, not to minimalism northern racism

I have two essays (5-7 pages each, not bad, but the research will suck considering I haven't started it) due on Friday for my Southern history course, one is a book report on the populists and the other is a film about Huey Long. I've read about half a book on populism. I have another essay due Friday as well as well as a presentation for Spanish tomorrow or Thursday.

In short, without making any arguments, Obama's hated (not disliked, hated) because he's black (though most would never own up to this) and disliked because he's a member of the democrats. They're all socialists, don'tcha know? /s

He's not a terrible president. He's not great, but he's not nearly as bad as people make him out to be. Ten years from now, people will remember him fairly fondly, imo.

While I would not call Huey P. Long evil, he falls into the "massively, corrupt asshole" category. If there was ever an American dictator, he was it. Long took control of Louisiana and created a political machine that he ran as both the governor and senator for Louisiana. He still did a lot of great things for the poor (free textbooks, roads, bridges, basically turned Lousiana around), and he may have even managed to become president had he not been assassinated.

Another major asshole in American history is "Pitchfork" Ben Tillman who literally murdered a black man to keep the poor man from voting. He has a statue in South Carolina at the state legislature.

Woodrow Wilson was also a racist who called Birth of a Nation an accurate representation of Southern history. For those who do not know, Birth of a Nation was a movie about the founding of the KKK, and it contained all of the horrible racism that one would expect from a movie that glorified the Klan.

Obama certainly had a rough start, but I'd still take him over the other two presidential candidates that were presented. He hasn't done a perfect job, and I wish he was more farther left, but I'd take him over John -would have started a war with Russia- McCain and Mitt -half of America is a bunch of lazy leeches- Romney.